Challenges to pre-migration interventions to prevent human trafficking: Results from a before-and-after learning assessment of training for prospective female migrants in Odisha, India

Abstract

Background Awareness-raising and pre-migration training are popular strategies to prevent human trafficking. Programmatic theories assume that when prospective migrants are equipped with information about risks, they will make more-informed choices, ultimately resulting in safe migration. In 2016, India was estimated to have 8 million people in modern slavery, including those who migrate internally for work. Work in Freedom (WiF) was a community-based trafficking prevention intervention. This study evaluated WiF's pre-migration knowledge-building activities for female migrants in Odisha to prevent future labour-related exploitation. Methods Pre-and post-training questionnaires were administered to women (N = 347) who participated in a two-day pre-migration training session. Descriptive analysis and unadjusted analyses (paired t-tests, McNemar's tests, Wilcoxon signed ranks tests) examined differences in women's knowledge scores before and after training. Adjusted analyses used mixed effects models to explore whether receiving information on workers' rights or working away from home prior to the training was associated with changes in scores. Additionally, we used data from a household survey (N = 4,671) and survey of female migrants (N = 112) from a population sample in the same district to evaluate the intervention's rationale and implementation strategy. Results Female participants were on average 37.3 years-old (SD 11) and most (67.9%) had no formal education. Only 11 participants (3.2%) had previous migration experience. Most participants (90.5%) had previously received information or advice on workers' rights or working

Human Trafficking: Results of a 5-Year Theory-Based Evaluation of Interventions to Prevent Trafficking of Women From South Asia

“…Adjusted analyses used mixed effects models to explore whether receiving information on workers' rights or working away from home prior to the training was associated with changes in before-and-after scores. Further information on analysis is available elsewhere (30).…”

“…For example, to examine awareness of the benefits of migrating for work, women were asked: "What would you say are the main benefits of moving away from home to take up work somewhere else?" Enumerators could then select any of nine benefits that women could name (30). Vignettes were also used in some questions prior to eliciting women's awareness of particular concepts.…”

“…For example, before the training, 47.3% agreed that "Paid domestic workers have the same rights as all workers, " which increased to 59.9% after. After the training, a majority reported they learned about women's rights (85.6%) and workers' rights (84.9%), but these changes were not reflected in their reported attitudes about these concepts (30).…”

“…At the first follow-up interview, 50% of those reached reported having attended the WIF training (n = 94/188) and noted that the most important information they received was related to the documents required to migrate (62%) and legal travel routes (40%) (38). In India, while the training was well-received, with 95% of participants reporting that they learned information about migrating safely that they did not know before, assessments of participant learning indicated that all knowledge domains covered by the training remained low after the training (see Outcomes below) (30). In Bangladesh, although some women appreciated the content of the training, they often did not think the guidance was relevant to their lives, and some found certain information to be incorrect.…”

“…This somewhat loose participant selection process inevitably raised questions about the extent to which the participants were appropriately targeted and selected, which may also have had the knock-on effect of lowering women's uptake of the training information. Among 347 training participants in India, just 10.4% had thoughts of moving away from their village before the training, which also reflected low female outmigration patterns in which only 7% of households had a female migrant (30). As with Nepal participants, the low proportion of training participants considering migration likely indicates poor participant identification.…”